North Carolina Judicial District 30B Pretrial Justice Pilot Project Final Reports
By North Carolina School of Government, Criminal Justice Innovation Law
In 2015, former Chief Justice Mark Martin convened the North Carolina Commission on the Administration of Law & Justice and tasked it with making recommendations to strengthen the state’s court system. In 2017, that Commission released its reports, including a recommendation that North Carolina embark on pilot projects supporting evidence-based pretrial justice reform.2 With the support of the Director of the NC Administrative Office of the Courts,3 North Carolina Judicial District 30B (JD 30B) became the state’s first such pilot project. The JD 30B pretrial justice pilot project sought to improve the district’s pretrial system, promoting public safety, efficient use of taxpayer resources, and fairness of the judicial process. The project had two core components: (1) developing and implementing consensus pretrial system reforms; and (2) an empirical evaluation to assess the impact of those reforms. In the project’s first effort, JD 30B stakeholders unanimously agreed to reforms including: • Implement a new decision-making framework for determining conditions of pretrial release. • Provide first appearance proceedings for all in-custody defendants. • Provide for the early involvement of counsel at pretrial proceedings. • Promote the increased use of summons in lieu of arrest in appropriate cases. • Promote the increased use of citation in lieu of arrest in appropriate cases. Reforms took effect January 1, 2019. Part II of this report details the findings from an empirical evaluation of the project.
Chapel Hill, NC: North Carolina School of Government, 2020. 15p. 55p.
Part I: Background, Process & Implemented Reforms March 20201 [PDF]